I have been intrigued by Carver Equipment since seeing the pics in Mags in the 80;s and Finally picked up a 6250 receiver and was blown away by the sound. I boxed up the Yamaha to give to my ex. I have a M500t and C1 on order, should be here Monday.I use a old bsr eq, and run Technics towers rated for 200 watts and Infinity Towers 150. I know I need to upgrade speakers. Any ideas for best bang for the buck for matching up speakers to my amp/pre amp? I was hoping to spend south of a grand. I apologise for any bad site/posting ettiquette, I will figure out the rules as I go. Read a lot of stuff the last month. Really like the M500t upgrades, with the blue leds and increased power and frankly a good going over because of age.

welcome. i believe with all my heart, that the al3 speakers from carver are the best bargain even when they sold for 3k new. now the average set is 500-900 in good working order. the crm2's are great although a sub is a must. lots of folks love the polk sda's, and then i like the klipsh alot as well, although i never personally owned a set. the corner loaded horns are by far a favorite as well as the 3 ways of smaller venue. canton speakers and mb quart are nice.

First of all WELCOME!!!+1 on what Angelo said. My experience with the ALIII's is only second hand, but judging by the comments posted here on the forums, they must be outstanding speakers! My experience with Polk Audio is from owning them, and has been outstanding. As you can see by my sig. I have several sets. It's a hard choice, but have to say the favorite of them all is the Polk SDA 2B. With all the tweaks, upgrades and rebuilding the crossovers, I have close to $900 invested in these speakers. They will out perform many of the newer designs costing far more.

Thanks for all the information, There are some polk sda around, kind of feel foolish. I read and spend a lot of time looking at set ups and i had never heard of the sda's. They actually look like what I was thinking of, now to see if they sound how I was thinking. The other speakers I was considreing were klipsch and some I have been really checking into is the magneplaner maggies

maggies are nice as well. i liked the lower model in a small sound room over the top dogs. heard them at upstairs audio in columbia sc, and even though the 20's were more accurate, the 1.something model just had a warmer, fuzzier if you will sound that just sucked you into the stage and then kept me there listening to some roger waters amuzed to death and the favorite dark side of the moon. the bigger ones were just that. bigger, better, etc, but they just did not have that thing that i have a hard time putting into words. they were simply more pleasurable to my ear.

slidero8 wrote:The other speakers I was considreing were klipsch and some I have been really checking into is the magneplaner maggies

I've owned Magnepan MMG's, 1.5's, 1.6's, 1.7's, 2.7's and listened to the earlier 3.x series with the true ribbon tweeter.

They all have the Magnepan "family" sound and are not rock n roll speakers. The 1.6's and 1.7's are very good, a bit light in the low end and won't go as loud in the extreme as other speakers but they do everything else very well. The 3.x Maggies have a bit better low end but unless you have a large room I would probably not recommend them because the ribbon tweeter can be a bit bright and attention getting in a smaller room. I've had the 1.x maggies in very small rooms and they do very well, they just need to be pulled out from the wall a few feet for better bass response.

I own Klipsch Chorus II's now and can recommend them if you prefer a "you are there" presentation and they have good bass response. Mid-range and vocals lack the Magnepan smoothness and delicacy though.

Harder to find used and a bit more expensive but giving a good combination of the Magnepan and Klipsch sound are the Legacy brand speakers, such as the Classic, Signature and Focus speakers. If you can find any of those for a good price used I'd strongly suggest looking into them. I picked up a pair of their small Studio speakers - might be the best $200 I've ever spent.

I have a pair of Infiniti sl-40's now which are lite for the M500t but I do like the sound, though they are probably on the inexpensive end. I see that ebay has Polk rti 12 speakers factory refurbished free shipping about $730 a pair. Original msrp is like $1600. All the reviews on "their" sight were great, still looking for some unbiased opinions b4 I would ever commit to buying. I am going to do some web searches on the speakers that were brought up here. Thanks again!.....J

slidero8 wrote:Thanks for all the information, There are some polk sda around, kind of feel foolish. I read and spend a lot of time looking at set ups and i had never heard of the sda's. They actually look like what I was thinking of, now to see if they sound how I was thinking. The other speakers I was considreing were klipsch and some I have been really checking into is the magneplaner maggies

I've heard the smaller Polks and the SDA's...I't a personal taste choice but I did like the smaller ones better.

I received the M500t and C1 and it sounds so cliche, but wow, you really do hear things you never heard b4, They are both very nice and the amp looks like it could be on a showroom shelf 25 years ago, I cannot see a flaw. But the sound, you really just don't know if you don't know. The difference is crazy!